


Unexpected Reactions

by Michelle_A_Emerlind



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arguing, Crying, Explicit Language, First Kiss, Hamilton Made Jefferson Cry, M/M, Whhhhhhhuuuuuutttttt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 07:58:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7259116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michelle_A_Emerlind/pseuds/Michelle_A_Emerlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lafayette is pissed that Hamilton made Jefferson cry. The only problem is that Hamilton has no idea what he's done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unexpected Reactions

**Author's Note:**

> I almost didn't post this, but I thought I would and just see how it goes. I think it's pretty okay if you can accept Jefferson being a little OOC for crying.

Hamilton is always prepared for everything that comes in life, be it war, love, politics--a good time or a rough one--but somehow, even though he’s always been excellent at reacting to whatever situation is thrown his way, he’s not prepared for this. Not prepared at all for an angry Frenchman to storm in the door of the bar and then stomp over to him, slapping him silly and cussing him out in French, followed by a long, angry huff of, “ _What did you do to Thomas to make him cry_?”

Hamilton’s brain short-circuits on him and then speeds up to try and compensate for his gaping open mouth. “I didn’t do anything!” his traitorous voice says, which gets him slapped across the nose so hard, he feels it’ll be stinging from now until King George crosses the ocean to run for president. “ _Fuck! OW!_ ”

“No, you are not going to _ow_ me,” Lafayette is saying and there’s a finger in his face. “I don’t know what you did, Alex, but you are going to fix it. _Right now_. Poor Thomas, mon tigre, he showed up at my door in such a fret. And it is all,” Lafayette pokes him in the chest, “your,” another poke, “fault. The only words he could get out of his mouth were ‘fuck Hamilton.’ ...and also for me not to say anything, but that’s besides the point. I’m French, he should know better. But YOU. YOU, Alex, are going to march over there and make it _better_.” 

“I don’t know what I did,” Hamilton whines honestly, going over and over his last conversation with Jefferson and not finding any clues hiding in the depths.

“Typical man,” Lafayette huffs. “Go ask him.”

“But--”

Lafayette raises his hand to smack and Hamilton’s tiny reserve of self-preservation kicks in. “Okay, okay! Christ!”

Lafayette points menacingly at the door and Hamilton sticks his metaphorical tail between his legs and slinks out of the bar, following Lafayette to his apartment and wondering just where his night went wrong.

When they get there, Lafayette lets them in not with a bang, but with the soft creak of the door as it opens and a murmured, “Thomas, mon tigre, can we come in?”

There’s a generalized shuffling from the couch and Lafayette opens the door wider, puts his hand on Hamilton’s back and shoves him in. The little hallway isn’t long at all, so it takes no time for Hamilton to pop into view and for Jefferson to see him. Wide-eyed, they stare at each other like two sides of an army stubbing toes with one another in the darkness and Hamilton actually takes a step back in shock at the view in front of him.

He’s never seen his rival like this before. Not even close. In fact, he’s barely seen him outside of the office at _all_ and when he _has_ it’s been like earlier today, a group gathering for a birthday luncheon and as part of a scene of camaraderie between coworkers and not as...well, Hamilton thinks, and is ashamed of it, not as a person. But here Jefferson is now, his clothes all wrinkled for once, his hair staticky, and tear marks down his cheeks that brighten his eyes. There are tissues on the end table beside him, balled into a little pyramid and there’s also a two-liter of Coke that looks like it might have been spiced up with a little rum, from the state of the other bottle sitting on the living room floor.

Hamilton blinks and the silence is pierced by Jefferson’s voice, booming in the small space, “I am going to _murder you, Gilbert!_ ” he yells at Lafayette who gasps in shock and then seems to realize by the snap in Jefferson’s body as he gets off the couch that he’s in for it.

“You two should talk,” Lafayette says quickly, pushing Hamilton toward him and then bolting like a rabbit out the door. “Au revoir!” he calls and Hamilton suddenly finds himself in an empty apartment with a pissed off politician who has turned all his scowling rage onto him.

“The fuck are you doing here, Hamilton?” Jefferson growls at him, dangerous like a tiger, indeed, even though Hamilton’s body responds with a little more excitement than it should at the prospect that Jefferson is about to eat him alive.

“...Lafayette made me,” Hamilton says honestly. “He says I made you cry.”

“Fuck you.”

“...he said you said that, too.”

“Well, fuck him. _And_ fuck you.” Jefferson flops down on the couch and angrily crosses his arms, turning his head away. “You can leave now.”

Hamilton half turns back to the door and assesses whether to piss off the spicy French guy or the brooding Virginian. He’s just about made up his mind when he hears the tiniest of sounds that Hamilton thinks--but he must be wrong--is Jefferson sniffling and trying to hide it. He doesn’t look, but he does walk a step to the right and settle down on the opposite side of the couch. Jefferson sighs heavily. “You’re going to be a dick about this, too, aren’t you?” Jefferson asks him and his voice sounds raw.

“Um, yes?” Hamilton answers, unsure what the protocol is here.

“Fuck me,” Jefferson mutters and rips a tissue from the box, lifts it to blow his nose. “I told that fucker not to say anything. I _told_ him I didn’t want you knowing. What a _bastard_.”

“...he’s French,” Hamilton tells him and Jefferson snorts.

“Well, he’s about to have an American foot up his French ass.”

Hamilton bites his lip and then stares at the couch awkwardly. “Look, uh...I don’t know what I did, but I’m sorry.”

Jefferson scoffs and then falls into silence, staring straight ahead of him. Hamilton shifts on the couch and thinks hard over the last few days, trying to find any clue. Yesterday, they had had a cabinet meeting, a brief one where he and Jefferson had, of course, argued the living daylights out of each other. And today, well, the morning was boring up until lunch and Jefferson had seemed fine--not at all like this, but had Hamilton really been looking that closely? And then lunch, where the whole group of them had gone out and Hamilton at least had thought they were having a relatively good time even though they spent awhile in-depth talking, and maybe criticizing a bit, the Declaration of Independence. But everything had been fine until...well, until Jefferson left rather suddenly in the middle of it. But he wasn’t _upset_. Was he?

“Did I…?” Hamilton starts, with a little trail off.

“Don’t,” Jefferson tells him wearily and rubs at his eyes. “Just go.”

“But I want to understand.”

Jefferson sighs and shakes his head.

“Was it...the meeting yesterday? I mean, I know you don’t like my plan, but--”

“Oh, _bullshit_ ,” Jefferson hisses at him. “I don’t give a fuck about your stupid bill.” He swallows. “I mean, I do. Because I care about this country and you are smashing it into ruin with your _government_ , but I’m not going to _cry_ over it.”

Hamilton frowns. “So it was the Declaration. I mean, if _I_ had written it, sure I would have done it differently, but it wasn’t _bad_.”

Jefferson swings his head over and looks at him, a deep set frown to his face and his eyes still glistening with moisture. But if Hamilton ignores that, ignores the puffiness around them, he recognizes this expression as one that he sees in Jefferson near daily. It’s his “are you this stupid?” look and Hamilton frowns to himself that he’s obviously missing something here that he should be thinking about.

Jefferson gathers breath and then speaks in a huff, letting it all out in a quick expel. “I was going to ask you out.” Hamilton blinks, but he doesn’t have time to process before Jefferson continues. “I was going to ask you out and then Madison made that fucking comment about how we argue like a married couple and you _laughed_ and said you would rather sail across the sea and fuck King George on a pulpit than me.”

Hamilton opens his mouth to deny, to say that’s absolutely _not_ true because of course he’s noticed that Jefferson’s smile lights up a room, that his hair is so bouncy it should be illegal, that he’s got abs for days and biceps that look like he could hold Hamilton up against a wall. But then he realizes that he can’t deny, because now that Jefferson has said it, he remembers. Remembers laughing in fear, mostly, because he didn’t know what else to do. Remembers letting his mouth run amok and get him into trouble like always. So instead, he says, “I didn’t mean it. I was just playing.”

Jefferson shakes his head furiously. “I listen to you bitch all the time. I know when you’re playing. That didn’t sound like you were _playing_.”

Hamilton’s face goes red and he stares down at his own lap. “I would have said yes,” he tells Jefferson.

“What?”

“If you had asked me.”

“Asked you what?”

“Out. I would have said yes.”

Jefferson swallows. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I would have!” Hamilton tells him and puts his sincerity behind it. “I just...I panicked. And I said something stupid. And I shouldn’t have.”

“I don’t want a pity date just because you saw me crying,” Jefferson spits.

“It wouldn’t be. I--”

“So it doesn’t affect you? To see me like this? Doesn’t fill you with a little sense of glee.” Jefferson’s hand rises and gets into motion as he talks, his body out of control like his words. “You’re not sitting over there cackling because for once, you won, right? You got me. You pushed me and I fell. Oh, look at you, better than Thomas fucking Jefferson who can’t take a damn joke. Right? That’s what that was, a joke? And here I am, sobbing like a baby. Like a fucking mess. Because I’m not as strong as bullshitting Alexander Hamilton.”

“...that’s not what I’m thinking at all.”

“Then what the fuck,” Jefferson asks him with a sniffle and an expression that belies his self-hatred for it, “are you thinking?”

Hamilton pauses to gather both his thoughts and to let Jefferson pause for a minute and suck back in the air he needs. “I think,” he starts, “that I’m a fucking dick.” Jefferson scoffs, but Hamilton continues. “I...I froze and words just, you know, vomited out of my mouth and it was too late to stop them. But I didn’t want you to get the right impression.”

“What _right impression_?” Jefferson growls, “That I’m just terrible to look at?”

“No,” Hamilton says softly. “That...that I like you.”

“Oh, please, you don’t have to lie, Alex. Why don’t you take you and your guilty conscious out the door and we’ll be fine tomorrow. I’ll just pull myself together and everything will go back to normal.”

And for a moment, Hamilton almost does. Because the thought of normal sounds nice--he and Jefferson verbally at each other’s throats if not ever _actually_ at each other’s throats because it’s all play, all loud-mouthed aggression and sure, Hamilton thinks Jefferson is stupid for not agreeing to a financial plan that will _clearly_ benefit their entire nation, but he doesn’t actually, well, hate him. In fact, it might be kind of the opposite and so while normal sounds nice, pushing this forward...the risk of getting something, getting _Jefferson_...well, that sound even _better_. And so Hamilton doesn’t leave. Instead, he reaches into his pocket, heart beating fast.

He swallows hard and stares down at the electronic screen, butterflies starting to slam up and down in his stomach. But Jefferson-- _Thomas_ \--has been crying. Has been letting his emotions out, is _vulnerable_ sitting over across the couch and if Alex really wants this to work, is really willing to give it a chance...doesn’t he need to be vulnerable, too? So he smashes down his pride and embarrassment and holds out the phone to Thomas with a snap of his elbow, refusing to look at him while he does it.

He feels Thomas’ eyes hot on the phone and then hot on him as Thomas takes it. Alex’s nerves go crazy, waiting. He knows Thomas is tapping the phone to bring the light back on, knows that he’s frowning at the text in front of him and then reading, eyes skimming--slow or quick? When will he be done?--and finally understanding something that Alex hasn’t ever wanted to admit.

_Laurens: You are so goddamn pissy! What the hell is up with you?_

_Hamilton: This is my normal state of being._

_Laurens: Oh, ha ha. Nice try. But no, I’m not going to stop pestering the living shit out of you. Really, man, what’s up? Is it Jefferson? It’s Jefferson, isn’t it?_

_Hamilton: I don't want to talk about Jefferson._

_Laurens: So it IS Jefferson._

_Hamilton: No._

_Laurens: >:(_

_Hamilton: You’re annoying today._

_Laurens: ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_

_Hamilton: Stop._

_Laurens: :P_

_Hamilton: I think I like him._

_Laurens: :O_

_Laurens: Wait, for real? Jefferson?_

_Hamilton: I kindly invite you to shut up now._

_Laurens: WHY?_

_Hamilton: >:(_

_Hamilton: ^ How I feel about you._

_Laurens: <3_

_Laurens: ^ How you feel about Jefferson._

_Hamilton: :|_

_Laurens: :D_

_Hamilton: He has nice hair._

_Laurens: I have nice hair._

_Hamilton: You’re dating Mulligan._

_Laurens: True and I haven’t figured out how to clone myself. Okay. Hair. Check._

_Hamilton: Abs._

_Laurens: Check._

_Hamilton: Eyes._

_Laurens: Yes, he has them._

_Hamilton: :| Pretty eyes._

_Laurens: Check._

_Hamilton: And we kind of click. You know, in the he’s an ass and I want to hate sex him way._

_Hamilton: And also not hate sex him._

_Hamilton: OMG, LAURENS. DO NOT TELL ANYONE THIS._

_Hamilton: Laurens?!?_

_Hamilton: Goddamnit, John!_

_Hamilton: Do not text Mulligan!_

_Laurens: Herc says go for it._

_Hamilton: Fuck you._

_Laurens: :D_

“You’ve been texting about me,” Thomas says quietly.

Alex crosses his arms across his chest and grunts.

“You’ve been texting about how you _like_ me.”

Another grunt.

Alex can see Thomas smiling out of peripheral vision, the curve of his mouth turning into a smirk that Alex knows all too well. “You’ve been _texting_ about my _eyes_ like a schoolgirl.”

“I said shut up!”

Thomas laughs and the tension is finally broken, finally evened out into the room so that neither one of them has the edge over the other. They sit there on the couch in their mutual vulnerability, Alex with his arms crossed and Thomas’ laugh dwindling down.

“So you want to lick my abs,” Thomas clarifies. “And I want to suck your dick. That’s what we’re saying here.”

Alex’s ears go red at the abs part and then perk at the sucking part and his emotions tug him back and forth in a storm of indecision. “Yeah?”

“Hmm,” Thomas says and then, before Alex can react, Thomas has launched himself across the cushion in between them and has his hand on the side of Alex’s neck--the skin prickling at the touch and curving up into his fingers--and Thomas’ lips are there, on Alex’s, everything crashing together at once.

Alex gasps and it turns into a deep moan low in his chest as Thomas wastes no time in kissing him with all the passion in his bones. And Alex responds to it with vigor, his own hands going up to clutch Thomas’ shoulders and then moving to tangle in his hair. Somehow Alex falls down on the couch and Thomas comes over him until they’re spread out across it, making out like teenage boys about to be caught by their parents.

Thomas finishes the kiss slowly, like he doesn’t want it to end and when he pulls back, Alex sees his eyes shining with something _else_ , something that sets him on fire. “Do you want to go out with me?” Thomas asks with a laugh.

And Alex laughs back, tries to bite his tongue, but can’t help it. “Yeah. King George isn’t available.”

“You little _shit_ ,” Thomas says with a chuckle. “I am going to fuck you so hard for that.”

And Hamilton finds that of all the things in the world he’s always prepared for, this is the one thing that he wants the most.

 

 


End file.
